2 The aide on whose arm the king was leaning spoke up and said to the man of Hashem, “Even if Hashem were to make windows in the sky, could this come to pass?” And he retorted, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

One of the most righteous and pious Jerusalemites of the 20th century, Rabbi Aryeh Levin (1885-1969), was beloved for his visits to the sick. Rabbi Levin would go to the hospitals of Jerusalem every Friday and speak with the nurses to find out which patients received no visitors. At the beds of these forgotten souls whom no relatives came to see, he would sit for hours, caressing each one’s hand and offering words of encouragement and cheer. He was also a frequent visitor at hospitals for lepers, including a hospital in Bethlehem where most of the patients were Arabs. Rabbi Levin began this practice after he had found a woman weeping bitterly by the Western Wall. He asked her, “what makes you cry so intensely?” She explained that her child had no cure, and was locked up in the leper hospital. Rabbi Levin immediately decided to visit the young child, and when he arrived, all the patients burst into tears. It had been years since they had the privilege of seeing a visitor from the outside world.Comment

4 If we decide to go into the town, what with the famine in the town, we shall die there; and if we just sit here, still we die. Come, let us desert to the Aramean camp. If they let us live, we shall live; and if they put us to death, we shall but die.”

6 For Hashem had caused the Aramean camp to hear a sound of chariots, a sound of horses—the din of a huge army. They said to one another, “The king of Yisrael must have hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Mizraim to attack us!”

The enemies of Israel miraculously flee, abandoning their entire camp. Similarly, there have been times in the State of Israel’s history where the enemy fled before engaging the Israel Defense Forces. A famous example occurred during the Six Day War, when IDF Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren and his driver single-handedly captured the holy city of Chevron. When they drove into Chevron, mistakenly thinking IDF soldiers were already there, they were greeted with a city full of white flags and empty of soldiers. Hashem’s miracles are always in evidence among the soldiers of Israel.1 comment

8 When those lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into one of the tents and ate and drank; then they carried off silver and gold and clothing from there and buried it. They came back and went into another tent, and they carried off what was there and buried it.

9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent! If we wait until the light of morning, we shall incur guilt. Come, let us go and inform the king’s palace.”

10 They went and called out to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We have been to the Aramean camp. There is not a soul there, nor any human sound; but the horses are tethered and the asses are tethered and the tents are undisturbed.”

11 The gatekeepers called out, and the news was passed on into the king’s palace.

﻿יא וַיִּקְרָא הַשֹּׁעֲרִים וַיַּגִּידוּ בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ פְּנִימָה׃

12 The king rose in the night and said to his courtiers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are starving, so they have gone out of camp and hidden in the fields, thinking: When they come out of the town, we will take them alive and get into the town.”

13 But one of the courtiers spoke up, “Let a few of the remaining horses that are still here be taken—they are like those that are left here of the whole multitude of Yisrael, out of the whole multitude of Yisrael that have perished—and let us send and find out.”

17 Now the king had put the aide on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate; and he was trampled to death in the gate by the people—just as the man of Hashem had spoken, as he had spoken when the king came down to him.

Kings Map

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About The Israel Bible

The Israel Bible is the world’s first Tanakh (Bible) centered around the Land of Israel, the People of Israel, and the dynamic relationship between them. Designed for both Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike, The Israel Bible offers a unique commentary that seeks to explain God’s focus on the Land of Israel alongside the original Hebrew text, transliteration of select Hebrew verses, and the New Jewish Publication Society translation.
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